London wine importer to open second bar

The team behind London-based wine importer Winemakers Club is opening a wine bar and restaurant in South East London, its second outlet in the capital.

The Winemakers Club’s existing bar in Farringdon

Winemakers Deptford is set to open at the end of this month and will comprise a bar and restaurant, as well as a small section of wines for retail.

The company has been importing and selling wine since 1999 and specialises in smaller, niche and up-and-coming producers, as well as organic and biodynamic wines. It supplies a number of bistros, cafes, small restaurants and gastro-pubs in and around London, along with a handful of restaurants in the North of England and Brighton.

Stockists including Fera at Claridges Hotel, Antidote, Stockwell’s the Canton Arms, Great Queen Street, and The 10 Cases.

In 2014 the Winemakers Club opened its first ‘wine pub’ and retail outlet in the City of London under Holborn Viaduct, and the new outlet will be in line with the Farringdon site.

Owner-director John Baum told db the new outlet will list around 30-40 red and white wines, focussing on Italian, Hungarian, French, and Australian wines, plus “anywhere else the piques our interest”. It will also offer a revolving wine by the glass selection, with four white, four red and one sparkling wine available at any one time.

“We are always happy to try something new and share it with others,” Baum said.

Producers includes Domaines des Marnes Blanches, Renata Pizzulin, Feudo dei Sanseverino, Hungary’s Hegyikaló from winer, Meinklang in Eastern Austria and Shobbrook wines from Australia.

Baum took over the business, which his father had founded in 1999, in 2009, having worked a sommelier and retailer as well as being on the team at gastro-pub The Canton Arms in Stockwell. The new restaurant is set to gather together several of the former Canton Arms team, including manager Toby Ursell, who will manage the new  Deptford site, with Rory Shannon and Trish Hilferty running the kitchen. It will concentrate of classic food with an “English backbone”, Baum added.

The bar is set to open the end of this month, with the kitchen due to follow next month.